A Puzzle of Social Constraints

Five years ago, if you'd told me I'd dye my hair blonde for charity, I'd have thought you were crazy. Surely I'll be judged for looking stupid? Ridiculed as I walk round the street? Lose all my self-confidence as a result of the two? 

Yet here we are, those three perfectly natural doubts dispelled as myths, and conversely, all three have had the opposite effect. In a sort of crazy nihilist yet positive way, I don't really care anymore. Time is an odd thing.

As I have probably painstakingly reiterated in almost all of my blogs over the last year and a half or so, I am a deep-thinking person. I'm apathetic about the superficial things in life - what brand of clothing to wear, in what state it is acceptable for me to leave the house, if people are making implicit judgements about me.

That is not to put myself on a pedestal; nor suggest a moral superiority complex, I'll continually do my best to make that clear. In contrast, what concerns me most is challenging traditional assumptions. Are all laws right or simply man-made to fit what we think is right? How can something really be right? Why shouldn't I just leave and run amok in the style of an anarchist?

Yeah yeah, I know, why worry about this? A cynic might tell me that they are things we as individuals cannot change, they are as they are for a reason.  That makes no sense to me. Traditions are there to be challenged. Because someone long ago decided the age to drink legally should be 18 and not 19, we just accept it?  We are often confused when other cultures have different ages/laws for these kinds of things.

If you think about it, every law we follow, every social norm we accept, even some objects given the rise of technology, are man-made concepts. And we accept this because we don't feel the need to challenge basic beliefs that are so ingrained within our society, it is incomprehensible.

Yes it may be unsolvable, but it's always good to put things in a wider context. In my eyes, one of the best techniques to solving a bad thought is to place it into perspective. As an example, say a friend has annoyed me. What might they be thinking? Is what they said or did a product of some pent-up anger or sadness? Did I act irrationally? The act or event isn't important in this regard, instead it is the attitudes of people. I think that is analogous for political and social events as a whole.

I've mentioned money before, possibly the most successful social construct imaginable, and conveniently one of the things that ties us into a certain lifestyle. Have you ever thought about what life could be like if we weren't constrained into getting an education, finding a job to earn enough money so that we can buy a house, get married, have children? 

That picture of an "ideal life" now seems to have just become a social norm. Sometimes I feel like I'm swimming through life with no real purpose - because let's face it, subscribing to those superficial norms doesn't have much purpose. I can earn money, find somewhere to live and yet what is that money really going to do, it's not going to give any fulfilment to my life. A family might, but there always remains a big if around that occurring in the first place. 

What I can do though to have a purpose, is what I want. But even that is constrained within reason. I may believe that society is ingrained too much with its intricacies, but that doesn't mean I'm going to up it all and start a completely different life as a monk or something of that ilk. I simply have too much to lose - friends, family, loyalties. I might not like this world but unfortunately I'm stuck as part of it. 

When I think about what's driving me in life - it is none of those surface value thoughts or actions that come to mind. I could say it would be to be happy, but that is the goal of everyone; we manifest that in different ways. I suppose, everyone is dictated by their own experiences, and I'm not in a position to judge anyone else for what they see as important in life and what they think makes them happy.

This mindset is probably the root of all negative thoughts and problems I have to be honest. It's like for me there are always bigger, more important issues than the ones I see in day-to-day life. Yet equally, this mindset satisfies me greatly. I'm not quite sure why, but going back to dying my hair, five years ago - I wouldn't have thought about the basic structure of life in this way. 

I was more obsessed with those smaller, more superficial things and as a result I worried about them. Those are less prevalent worries now. Instead, and probably more dangerously, it is why am I here? Are all these temporary reliefs of happiness I experience giving me anything valuable?

It's exhausting to think like that and sometimes I will manifest that in more depressing ways. But sometimes, there seems some enlightening hope that makes me think that nothing can go wrong. I've always imagined how much better life could get, but that enables me to see how much worse it could be. Something can be good, and I'll think "But it could be better". Something can be bad, and I'll think "But it could be worse". Sometimes I wish I didn't think like that; sometimes I love it.

Yet I wouldn't change it. I don't want to live blissfully ignorant, obsessed with trivial things and striving for more of them. I'd rather sit back and observe.